Gastric cancer is the 2nd leading cause of cancer death worldwide and the 4th most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide. Helicobacter pylori infection is the major risk factor of gastric cancer, and as such, this bacterium ...

Non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) is the most common type of lung cancer and is the leading cause of cancer related mortality worldwide. The past decade has seen exciting advances in the development of targeted therapies ...

Autologous bone marrow grafting has been shown to aid in the healing of bone defects since the 1950s. Transplantation of freshly-aspirated autologous bone marrow, together with a scaffold, is a promising clinical alternative ...

Immunization is a powerful approach for the prevention and control of infectious disease, however despite the successes of modem vaccine development, there remain several notable obstacles for the advancement of vaccine-mediated ...

The importance and pervasiveness of naturally occurring regulation of RNA function in biology is increasingly being recognized. A common regulatory mechanism uses inducible protein-RNA interactions to shape diverse aspects ...

Monoclonal antibodies have emerged as a promising class of therapeutics for the treatment of human disease, and in particular human cancer. While multiple mechanisms contribute to antibody efficacy, the engagement and ...

There is an ever-growing demand for enantiopure chemical compounds, particularly new pharmaceuticals. Enzymes, as natural biocatalysts, possess many appealing properties as robust asymmetric catalysts for synthetic chemistry. ...

The critical first step in the host infection by influenza A virus is the binding of the viral surface glycoprotein hemagglutinin (HA) to the sialylated glycan receptors terminated by N-acetyineuraminic acid (Neu5Ac) ...

Monoclonal antibodies have emerged as an important class of cancer therapeutics due to their ability to specifically bind tumor-expressed antigens. Unfortunately, attempts to treat solid tumors with these drugs are often ...

DNA damage contributes to cancer, aging, and heritable diseases. Ironically, DNA damaging agents are also commonly used in current cancer treatment. We therefore need robust, high throughput, and inexpensive tools for ...

Experimenter control of target gene expression is a fundamental component of molecular biology research. In many systems, tools exist that allow generalizable control of gene expression at the transcriptional or ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is gaining recognition as a powerful tool in biological research, offering non-invasive access to anatomy and activity at high spatial and temporal resolution. However, the range of biological ...

The Plcsmodium liver stage is an attractive target for the development of antimalarial drugs and vaccines, as it provides an opportunity to interrupt the life cycle of the parasite at a critical early stage. However, ...

Optical traps have played a central role in the exploration of biological systems through the examination of molecular motors, biopolymers, and many other interactions at the nano and micro length scales. This thesis seeks ...

One goal underlying synthetic biology is to develop standard biological parts that can be reliably assembled into devices encoding higher-order functions. Here, I developed a framework for engineering post-translational ...

Biotherapeutics have revolutionized medicine with their ability to achieve unprecedented molecular recognition and mediate complex biological responses. The intracellular delivery of biotherapeutics is an unmet scientific ...

The aim of my thesis is to help enable the engineering of biological systems that behave in a predictable manner. Well-established techniques exist to engineer systems that behave as expected. Here, I apply such techniques ...

Antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) is implicated in the efficacy, to some degree, of most anti-cancer monoclonal antibodies. This interaction is mediated through Fc gamma receptor (Fc[gamma]R) binding to ...